Short-term housing rental industry giant Airbnb now lists more than 1 million rooms available in 192 countries. The platform’s largest market is in New York City, with more than 25,000 listings per night, but it’s also where the debate over how to regulate short-term rentals is the most contentious. In light of a new report by the NY Attorney General that says nearly three-quarters of Airbnb’s listings in the city are technically illegal, the city is cracking down. Hari Sreenivasan reports. Continue reading →

The onslaught of automation that’s replacing human workers — from golf caddies to bank tellers — may be putting us on a path to humanitarian crisis, says Jerry Kaplan, author of “Humans Need Not Apply.” As technology grows and jobs become obsolete, income inequality and poverty could follow for millions of Americans. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports. Continue reading →

New hazards arise as machines increasingly intrude into domains that were formerly the exclusive province of humans. Jerry Kaplan explains the hidden dangers of the human-machine competition.Continue reading →

Trustees of the Medicare and Social Security programs released their annual reports last week. What wasn’t included? How to put these critical senior support programs on sustainable trajectories. Continue reading →

The federal Export-Import Bank expired June 30 when Congress failed to renew its charter. The bank is a small federal agency that helps U.S. companies sell their products overseas, by underwriting loans to foreign customers. Conservatives oppose it as corporate welfare and are pushing to keep it dead. But late Monday the Senate voted 64-29 to add legislation reviving the bank to a sweeping highway bill being considered on the floor. Continue reading →

While many of us head to beaches or backyard barbecues this weekend, negotiating teams from 12 nations will be busy working on perhaps the most important trade deal of our generation — the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Continue reading →